Bloody Sunday casualties 'included IRA gunmen'

By David Sharrock, Ireland Correspondent

12:00AM GMT 28 Nov 2000

SEVERAL IRA gunmen may have been among at least 34 unidentified casualties on Bloody Sunday, in addition to the 27 people officially listed as killed or wounded, the inquiry into the shootings was told yesterday.

A lawyer representing most of the British soldiers involved in events in Londonderry on Jan 30 1972 alleged that "many more" additional casualties appeared to have occurred than had been officially accounted for. These could have included members of the IRA.

Edwin Glasgow, QC, said civilian witnesses had spoken of 34 "untraced or unidentified casualties" on Bloody Sunday, in addition to those who would be identified by soldiers when they gave their evidence to the inquiry.

He said: "We would respectfully submit that it is to be inferred that those who were killed or seriously injured, but who have never been publicly identified, may include in their number individuals who were engaged in terrorist activity of one kind or another."

Opening his case to the tribunal in the city chaired by Lord Saville, he complained that there had been a widespread reluctance on the part of many civilian witnesses to give full accounts to the tribunal of what they saw, or knew, about gunmen and their activity.

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He accused Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein education minister at Stormont and a leading Provisional IRA member in the city at the time, of not having the "courage, integrity or respect" to co-operate with the tribunal. He added that the "vast majority" of some 40 people believed to have been members of the IRA in the city at the time of Bloody Sunday, to whom the inquiry had written seeking their co-operation, had not replied.

Mr Glasgow said the process of handing information to the inquiry had so far been "wholly and exceptionally" one-sided, with no statements from the leading republicans of that era.

He said: "Any failure or refusal on the part of witnesses or retired terrorists now to tell this tribunal the whole truth either insults or makes a mockery of the widely publicised claim that there is universal support in this city for a truly open, fair and objective inquiry."

Mr Glasgow said that all the soldiers he represented who had fired live rounds during Bloody Sunday had given statements and were prepared to give evidence to the tribunal. He told the inquiry that their position was in "stark contrast" to the fact that not one IRA gunman had come forward and made a statement or had been properly identified to the tribunal by those who knew his identity.

Mr Glasgow said the soldiers he represented who fired live rounds during Bloody Sunday would say without exception that they aimed and shot at those who they believed to be using firearms or to be threatening lethal violence to them or others.

Mr Glasgow acknowledged that innocent people were killed on Bloody Sunday. He told the tribunal he would not argue that any of the known dead and injured were armed with guns, nail bombs, petrol bombs or acid bombs. Mr McGuinness said last night that he intended to "treat the comments of Mr Glasgow with the contempt they deserve".